Robbing God. Will a man rob God, yet he have robbed me? It is evident that you withhold your hearts from God, or, in other words, rob him of your affections, the very thing which he principally desires. And is this a small offense? Should a person rob you of the affection and esteem of the partner of your bosom, or of your children, or your friends, would you not think it a great injury? Would it not, in many instances, be worse than robbing you of your property? And is it, then, a trifling offense for intelligent creatures to rob their Creator, Father, and Benefactor of that supreme place in their affections in which He has a most perfect right, in which He prizes above everything they possess? The world is, in some form or other, the great Diana, the grand idol of all its inhabitants so long as they continue in their natural sinful state. They bow down to it, they worship it, they spend and are spent for it, they educate their children in its service, their hearts, their minds, their memories, their imaginations are full of it, their tongues speak of it, their hands grasp it, their feet pursue it. In a word, it is all and all to them. while they give scarcely a word, a look, or a thought to Him who made and preserves them, who is really all in all. Thus men rob God of their bodies and spirits, which are His, and practically say, We are our own. Who is Lord over us? From the manner in which we habitually treat the Bible, we may learn our feelings and dispositions towards God. For as we treat the Word of God, so should we treat God Himself, were He to come and reside among us in a human form, as He once dwelt on earth in the form of His Son. The contents of Scripture are a perfect transcript of the Divine Mind. If, then, God should come to dwell among us, He would teach the same thing that the scriptures teach and pronounce upon us the same sentence which they pronounce. We should therefore feel towards Him as we now feel towards them. If we reverence and love and obey the scriptures, then we should reverence, love and obey God. But if we dislike or disbelieve the scriptures, if we seldom study them or read them only with indifference and neglect, we should treat God in the same manner. Never would He be a welcome guest in a family where His word is neglected.
